How social media works with editorial at Forbes

Moses writes, “Forbes has a team of seven led by Shauna Gleason, director of social media. Formed over the past six months, the team has platform-specific experts who collaborate with the rest of editorial, including design and video. With only seven people, the social team can’t create with all Forbes’ social content on its own, so sometimes they act as assignment desk, coming up with platform-specific story ideas and working with staffers to create a story for a given platform.

“‘Increasingly, the strategy here is almost social-first,’ D’Vorkin said. ‘In some cases, they are actually helping our editorial team create content. Years ago, the editor would go, ‘Can you get me some promotion for this post I just did?’ Now, the LinkedIn or Snapchat person is saying, ‘Hey why don’t you do this story on such and such because it’ll do really good on the platform I’m responsible for.’’

“As an example, Gleason’s team recently pitched Forbes’ video team the idea of Tasty Super Bowl recipes. The video team filmed videos of two honorees from Forbes’ 2017 30 Under 30 list from the list’s food category, Jennifer Martin of Pipsnacks and Jake Dell of Katz’s Delicatessen. The social team posted the videos across Facebook, Instagram Stories and Snapchat the day before the Super Bowl.

“In another case, the social team pitched an Instagram Story to the social visual graphics team for Valentine’s Day. The resulting ‘Bumble By the Numbers’ story explored the dating app with information including dating analytics and best profile practices.”

Chris Roush is the Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.